Finland Figure Skating...lets not forget to give props to the other countries in these Olympics too.

Well, I am really enjoying these Olympics. Canada is doing well regardless what the media or “experts” are saying (or how the Men’s hockey team is doing). Lots of 4th and 5th place finishes, and while they don’t equal medals, they are something to be proud of. Melissa Hollingsworth finishing 5th (pretty damn good if you ask me), and then crying because she felt she let her country down? Good grief. I bet the athletes can’t wait for the next Olympics where its not here and they don’t have this crazy pressure on them to medal. Plus the snafu’s of the early parts of the games are causing some foreign media to dub these games the worst ever? As far as I’m concerned they can eat a dick. Based on what I have seen/read, the fan support of these games is amazing and more than makes up for a couple of hiccups.

And hey, at least we are kicking ass in curling! Ladies curling is becoming a favorite of mine.

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31 Responses to “Monday Morning Standings, Olympic Edition”

Yah I felt bad for Hollingsworth. I saw that interview too. Like, seriously, it didn’t help that the TSN guy was kind of prodding that out of her too. Really, in a situation like that, I’d probably say “fuck the ratings” and just say something like “you didn’t let the country down at all”. She should be proud. Yah, she didn’t finish as high as she wanted, but I’m not the one that is bummed out by her finishing 5th. This is harder on her than any one of us regular schmoes that would never have a hope in hell of making the Olympics.

I thought about it, and could have been there probably by like 2:30 but I decided I’d rather just stay home! 😛

Plus I seriously look like a moron. My whole bottom jaw and lip is frozen, so I can’t really operate my bottom lip so well. I am pretty sure I look ridiculous right now. You guys don’t need any more ammo to make fun of me. 😛

gr8one: Hey, is it just me or is our womens curling skip one sexy looking milf?

I’ve had a chance to meet her a few times. My buddy curls on the Ferbey team and his wife knows Cheryl. She’s even hotter in person. Also, she’s a great gal. The whole package really. I hope she gets gold. She’s definitely worked hard and is just a great all around gal.

You’re all thinking….nothing but the medal, well, except for one particular poster who likes our old goalie. 😛

chucker: You’re all thinking….nothing but the medal, well, except for one particular poster who likes our old goalie.

Not sure if you’re referring to me or Otto84, but hey, as far as I’m concerned, power to Cheryl and I hope she gets gold as well. If ya still got it at her age, flaunt it, bounce it, and show those ‘its’ off with nothing but Olympic bling in between.

Meanwhile, those of us of the female persuasion get to oggle Kevin, yay…well, they do say bald is beautiful.

Any pics of young curling studs out there? Are there any young curling studs out there? Guess I’ll have to settle for some of the young hockey studs, there is more than one reason I love the sport of mens hockey ya know.

BTW, this exact conversation is happening on the Isles message board too. Go figure, all of North America is noticing our Canadian women’s curling skip.

Racki: The timing is completely moronic. At least wait for the games to end. What were the reasons why?

Yeah, there’s no defending this decision to me. Canada is in the middle of it’s coming out party to the world and dipshit pisses in the punch.

People always bitch how we don’t do better on the world stage. Now we’re shining and what does he do? How is this going to be a popular decision? The recession is mostly over and there is no reason to be pulling this kind of crap, especially when the dollar amount is really not big.

There are so many other things that are a complete waste of money that could be scrapped, but national pride and competition are apparently first.

Congrats to the Cdn women’s hockey team! Just had the mass interview with Brian Williams. LOL at the goalie, she smacked her forehead with the gold medal when she went for the drug testing and you can tell it left a mark!

And Joannie Rochette, what a story. So proud of her. If she’s up for staying to the end of the games, which I think she said she plans to, I think she should be our flag bearer. To me she just exemplifies the true meaning of these games (the meaning of which seems to have been missed by the Harper gov’t) for all athletes, not just Canadians.

I lost my mom when I was 23, so just a bit younger than what Joannie is now. So I know what she is going through. My mom’s death was sudden as well and it’s hard to describe, but as empty, numb and lost as I felt, I also felt a type of strength I never knew I had. I suspect Joannie has experienced the same feeling and there is a comfort in having something to focus on and just a desire to fulfill your loved one’s final wishes. The strength she has shown throughout all this is just amazing and really, her mother’s legacy. Truly a remarkable young lady who has made her family and her country so very proud.

First off, thanks for sharing that, and sorry for your loss, LNOF (although I realize that it is in your past, it still might not be something easy to talk about!).

As for the Harper stuff and the Own the Podium thing, I just think they should re-brand it and rethink the idea behind it. Their goal was to finish first at these Olympics, which is a bit crazy to think. But I’d like some of our taxmoney to go to these athletes still, but under a less arrogant sounding moniker, perhaps (which apparently has been scrutinized a bit). I still am unsure why they cancelled the program.

Thanks Racki, it’s not easy but you just deal with it. She’s been gone 20 years so I’ve had a long time to come to terms with things. She was a huge figure skating fan and we enjoyed watching competitions together. I remember watching the ’88 Olympics with her when Liz Manley won the last female skating medal prior to tonight. This is actually the first time in a long time that I’ve paid this much attention to women’s figure skating. Strange how you can feel connections with people you don’t even know. I had never even heard of Joannie before these games.

I think they spent “only” something like $120M on this program (remembering that this is over 5 years). What does that work out to? Somewhere between a buck or two a year per tax payer?

Compared to some other countries (some of which are also experiencing a rough economy) that’s nothing. I can’t find the raw numbers of other countries, unfortunately to support that, but I’ve heard that the Chinese actually spend more than 10x that (per person) on their Olympic funding.

I think the U.S. actually has no public funding though (but some of their bigger athletes receive huge pay days from corporate sponsors.. however of course you know that certain sports/athletes would be favored though in that case). It would be nice to see some sponsors here step up big and help carry the burden a bit. Apparently 25% of funding for this Own The Podium program was corporate funding.

Really when you get down to it, it’s not THAT important of an issue for me. I mean, if we’re talking about funding being cut from more important areas such as medical research, hospitals, etc, than obviously cut the funding. But as it stands, I am not so sure that even $2 of my paycheque each year is going to kill me to help Joe/Jane Athlete do us proud. They could still raise everyone’s taxes by that $2 / year, and I think we’ll all survive just fine.

As far as the whole “Own the Podium” branding being too arrogant, they can rename it the “Help a Brother Out So He Can Get Gold” program for all I care. 😆

I guess there was also a fund raising campaign that compelled every Canadian to contribute $20.10 to athlete funding… does anyone remember that? I don’t at all. I wonder if it was just poorly advertised, or if I just live in a hole (probably the latter :P).

From what I understand, the chinese sink lots of money in non-headline sports in order to get their medal numbers up (although I heard that in relation to the summer olympics, so not sure if its the same here). Also they give a big pay-cheque and full pension to a gold medalist.

Also, what Canada is doing is cutting 11 mil. Not all that much (probably a buck for each person that pays tax), however the gov’t is asking coporate canada to cover it instead. Not sure if that will happen at this moment.

I know it seems like a small amount too, however imagine a government official trying to explain that we either need to cut social services, increase taxes or run a larger deficit to their constituents. Not going to fly.

I bet what happens is that it will be covered privately, just only to the big name sports (which was the problem before the ‘Own the Podium’ program anyways).

Just a really really stupid time to announce it. I bet they were trying to sneak it in when no one would notice.

As for own the podium, I have no problems with the name. Nothing wrong with funding our athletes to make it to the podium. Just don’t make it an expectation, and remember that 4th or 5th is still cool.

Yah exactly.. 4th or 5th is fine by me (still feel bad for that one girl that cried for finishing 5th thinking she let us down.. far from it). It’s not a competition for me either to be #1 overall. Just get as many medals as you can, and we’ll all be happy. It’ll be a long time before Canada is #1 at any Olympics.

But yah, as I said above, I wouldn’t mind seeing more corporate sponsors step up. It would be even nicer if the money just went in one big pool, however that doesn’t help these sponsors get their money back much. The US wants carrot top doing McDonald’s commercials… we’d have to do something similar, which doesn’t help the little guy so much.

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